US must protect Ukraine from ‘communist’ Russia – congressman
Republican Congressman from Georgia, Rich McCormick © Getty Images / Tom Williams; CQ-Roll Call, Inc
RT | December 20, 2023
The US must ensure Russia does not defeat Ukraine in order to preserve America’s global hegemony, Republican Congressman Rich McCormick has said in an interview with C-SPAN’s Washington Journal.
The comments come as US lawmakers remain deadlocked over continued financial assistance to Kiev. Republicans have refused to support President Joe Biden’s latest military aid package, including an additional $60 billion for Ukraine, unless a deal is reached on domestic border security and significant immigration reforms.
Georgia Congressman McCormick was asked to comment on concerns that the US could end up “betraying Ukraine” if it delays further assistance, spelling defeat for Kiev’s forces. The lawmaker stressed that he supports Ukraine, while claiming that “every single former [US] secretary of defense” that he has talked to also believes that Washington must prevent a Russian victory.
“First of all, we made a promise. To support a country that was invaded by a communist country,” McCormick said. The Soviet Union ceased to exist in 1991, and Russia has not been a communist nation ever since.
The congressman further insisted that the Russia-Ukraine conflict was a “fight between democracy and autocracy.”
Kiev’s defeat, McCormick continued, would not only affect all of Europe, but also the Far East, where he suggested China would invade Taiwan and threaten US microchip supplies. It would also mean that Ukraine’s vast amounts of grain, steel, titanium, and other resources “would make Russia stronger” and “support China,” which would “break up the US global leadership,” he claimed.
“This is a very important battle we need to have,” McCormick insisted, adding that “we can’t continue to slow roll this” and that the US and Europe must do their part to “end this quickly.”
Moscow has repeatedly described the Ukraine conflict as a proxy war being waged against Russia by the US. According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Washington is willing to fight Moscow “until the last Ukrainian.”
Putin also claimed last week that Kiev’s desperation over its failed counteroffensive had caused it to send troops on suicide missions in an attempt to breach Russian positions. “I don’t even know why they do that,” the Russian leader said, adding that Ukrainian soldiers themselves describe some operations as a “one-way trip.”
The hidden toll: Is Israel downplaying soldiers’ deaths?
By William Van Wagenen | The Cradle | December 19, 2023
“How many Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza?”
This is a persistent question that many are asking as the Israeli military’s ground campaign in the bombed and besieged enclave nears its second month.
If the army is suffering relatively low losses while inflicting massive Palestinian civilian casualties, this suggests Israel is well on its way to achieving its clear objective of eliminating Hamas, but also its unspoken goals: conquer Gaza, ethnically cleanse its 2.3 million residents, and rebuild the Gush Katif settlement bloc.
But if the occupation army is indeed suffering huge losses, this suggests the Israeli military and political leadership may need to soon end their genocidal campaign prematurely, while citing exaggerated external pressure from the White House as the pretext.
Secrecy surrounding Israeli losses
Israel’s military claimed on 17 December that 121 soldiers had been killed since its delayed ground campaign began on 27 October, when tanks and infantry began to push into Gaza’s cities and refugee camps.
But determining the true number of Israeli soldier casualties has always been notoriously difficult, as Israel’s military goes to great lengths to cover up its combat losses. A recent battle between Hamas and Israel’s vaunted Golani Brigade exemplifies this secrecy.
“We are heading to the most difficult and deepest place with a large number of enemy fighters,” boasted Israeli Lt. Col. Tomer Grinberg, commander of the Golani Brigade’s 13th Battalion, shortly before leading his troops on a ground operation in the legendary Shujaiyya (which aptly means “courageous”) neighborhood in northern Gaza.
He then added, “I promise you a resounding victory.”
But Grinberg is now dead.
According to Israeli sources, Grinberg was killed during the 12 December operation, along with nine other Golani soldiers, in an ambush by Hamas fighters.
After four of the brigade’s soldiers were injured in a firefight, others sought to rescue them amid fears they may be dragged into a tunnel. The second group was also hit by explosives, as was a third group that also tried to evacuate the wounded.
After the battle, Hamas issued a statement warning:
“The longer you stay there, the greater the bill of your deaths and losses will be, and you will emerge from it carrying the tail of disappointment and loss, God willing.”
Resistance claims higher soldier toll
But there is compelling reason to believe the number of soldiers killed alongside Grinberg in Shujaiyya is much higher than the nine announced by the army.
Security expert and retired Israeli Colonel Miri Eisin told CNN that the 12 December attack was particularly painful because so many of the dead were high-ranking officers:
“We’re hurting today… It’s always hard when soldiers are killed, but when it’s this level of command, it hits you in the gut. These are commanders that commanded hundreds of soldiers.”
This led one former US soldier to ask on X whether Israel was hiding the true number of soldiers killed in the ambush. “Where are all the privates, and the corporals, and the lower enlisted?”
Hamas, through its armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, provides an answer.
Regarding the events on 12 December, the Qassam Brigades reported killing 11 soldiers in Shujaiyya, including members of a rescue team, in an apparent reference to the deaths acknowledged by the Israeli army.
But according to Qassam, on the same day, its fighters also killed or injured 10 soldiers east of the city of Khan Yunis, killed or injured another 20 soldiers barricaded inside a building in the Sheikh Radwan area of Gaza City, and killed another 15 soldiers who attacked them in their make-shift base at the Abu Rashid Pool.
Censorship on the press and hospitals
Despite claiming to be “the only democracy in the Middle East,” Tel Aviv maintains a tight grip on information related to military casualties through the use of military censors, controlling what the press can publish concerning national security issues, including injuries and deaths of soldiers.
“The human losses announced by the security establishment are usually binding on hundreds of media institutions, and these are allowed to work basically according to this rule. The death toll always comes from one source, and no one questions it,” Hassan Abdo, The Cradle’s Palestine Correspondent, reported earlier this year.
Abdo attributes this to preserving the image of the invincible Israeli soldier “who does not fall victim to a weak, primitive opponent.”
This is “one of the main pillars of the Zionist project based on the tripartite of security, immigration, and settlement,” he added.
As The Cradle noted, even before the outbreak of war on 7 October, Israeli soldiers have had a strange tendency to die in “accidents” during periods of heightened conflict with the Palestinian resistance, including in car accidents, plane crashes, suicides, gas leaks, and even falling from balconies.
But this invincible image was shattered with the operation Al-Aqsa Flood, when Hamas and other Palestinian resistance groups broke out of the Gaza Strip to attack the Israeli military bases and settlements (kibbutzim) enforcing the brutal 17-year siege on the tiny and impoverished enclave.
During Al-Aqsa Flood, Hamas killed 41 soldiers from Grinberg’s Golani battalion alone, in major battles at the Re’im and Nahal Oz military bases.
Hezbollah’s estimates and questions from within
Israel claims Hamas carried out a massacre at the Nova music festival, just a few kilometers from the Re’im base, but a major battle took place there as well. At Nova, 58 Israeli police were killed, including from elite combat counter-terror units of the Border Police, known as Yamam, who were the first to respond to the attack.
According to an Israeli police investigation regarding events at Nova, had there not been a substantial police deployment at Yad Mordechai, some 30 kilometers further north, “the terrorists would have been on their way to … Tel Aviv in 40 minutes.”
It, therefore, becomes more imperative than ever for the occupation state to hide the extent of its losses, both in the battle against the Palestinian resistance in Gaza and in the north in the battle with Hezbollah, to reestablish and maintain the myth of an overwhelmingly powerful military presence in the region.
Anecdotal evidence and estimates from Hezbollah suggest that the official count of 115 Israeli soldiers killed in the fighting in Gaza and near the Lebanese border following 7 October is likely much lower than the true figure. Reports from different sources indicate a significant discrepancy, with instances of mass casualties not officially acknowledged.
The Lebanese resistance movement estimates its attacks on settlements and military bases in northern-occupied Palestine have killed at least 35 Israeli soldiers and injured 172.
After just the first week of fighting in Gaza, the death toll, as announced by the Israeli army from fighting there, had reached 19. Among them were nine soldiers killed in just one attack. Hamas struck the “Namer” armored personnel carrier transporting the soldiers to the battle with an anti-tank missile.
Seven of the dead soldiers were 20 years old or younger, which seems to confirm the perception that Israel is sending inexperienced fighters into combat against Hamas’ battle-hardened fighters motivated by a cause, resistance to occupation, they firmly believe in.
But the occupation army spokesperson’s unit quickly learned not to announce the mass killing of soldiers of this sort.
Baruch Rosenblum, an Israeli rabbi, recalled a story from a senior officer in the army from the second week of the Gaza ground campaign. The officer explained that most of the fighting takes place at night, and that in just one operation, Hamas had killed 36 soldiers.
The rabbi explained that Hamas had attacked a convoy of three Namer armored vehicles, each carrying 12 soldiers, setting them ablaze. The army command watched via drone live feed as the soldiers abandoned the vehicles and Hamas eliminated them all with anti-tank weapons.
The senior officer chose not to disclose his name to the rabbi “to avoid arrest for revealing state secrets,” and the incident was never announced by the army or reported in the Israeli press.
On 18 November, in the third week of the ground operation, David Oren Baruch, the director of Mount Herzl Military Cemetery, provided another anecdote suggesting a soldier death toll much larger than what was publicly known.
He revealed that “We are now going through a period where every hour there is a funeral, every hour and a half a funeral.”
“I was asked to open a large number of graves. Only in the Mount Herzl cemetery did we bury 50 soldiers in 48 hours,” Baruch explained further.
Military control of the narrative
The Israeli military’s reluctance to disclose the number of wounded soldiers further adds to suspicions of underreporting.
Unlike in past wars, the Israeli military had refused to make any statement about the number of wounded in Gaza. This finally changed on 10 December, just before Haaretz planned to publish its report on the number of soldier casualties based instead on hospital sources.
Haaretz noted “a considerable and unexplained gap between the data reported by the military and that from the hospitals.” The hospital data the outlet obtained showed the number of wounded soldiers was “twice as high as the army’s numbers.”
The Israeli newspaper also highlighted the military’s tight control over the data reported by the hospitals themselves, explaining that members of the army spokesperson’s unit “are in the hospitals around the clock. Every press release regarding wounded soldiers and replies to media queries must receive their approval.”
Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth similarly reported on 9 December that, “Every day, about 60 new wounded are received only by the rehabilitation department” and that “the cumulative numbers since October 7 are astronomical: More than 2,000 soldiers, policemen and other members of the security forces have been officially recognized as disabled.”
“We have never been through anything even similar to this,” explained Limor Luria, head of the rehabilitation department at the Ministry of Defense.
“More than 58 percent of the wounded who are taken in by us have severe injuries of arms and legs, including those that require amputations. About 12 percent are internal injuries – spleen, kidney, tearing of internal organs. There are also head and eye injuries.”
In addition to thousands of horrific physical injuries, Israel is also facing “a tsunami of trauma,” the paper added. “I sat with a fighter who took three bullets. A physically torn person, a very serious injury,” Luria added, “but his main struggle is with the sights he saw.”
One injured soldier, Elisha Madan, recounted to a crowd how his fellow soldiers were killed in front of his eyes. “I came back from the dead alone. My entire squad died, and I was on the verge of death. I survived thanks to your prayers,” Madan said while seated in his wheelchair.
‘All warfare is based on deception’ – Sun Tzu
Since 7 October, the Israeli military leadership has reported falsehoods about almost every facet of that day’s events, and the war that followed.
They lied about Hamas beheading babies, they covered up burning alive their own soldiers and civilians with Apache helicopter and tank fire, and they continue to lie about pretending to care about the safety of Palestinian civilians, who they have mercilessly bombed for months with only the slightest pretext of targeting Hamas fighters and infrastructure.
As a result, while it is impossible to know the true numbers of Israeli soldiers killed in battle against the Palestinian resistance, there is ample reason to question the veracity of the information provided by the US-backed occupation army.
Analysis: Why Israel Will Continue Its Deadly Push Into Gaza City Centres
By Zoran Kusovac | Strategic Culture Foundation | December 19, 2023
Dramatic news reports, claims and videos have emerged from both sides involved in the Gaza fighting throughout the past week.
The week started with the Israeli army releasing several videos of Palestinians stripped to their underwear being marched through urban ruins. Israel’s PR machine disregarded the Palestinian outcry that followed. Israel staunchly asserted that the men were Hamas fighters and that their alleged mass surrenders signified that the end of the Palestinian group was close, even as many Palestinians and independent observers insisted that the men were civilians who had been treated against the laws of war by being publicly humiliated.
For its part, Hamas stuck to its usual practice of pushing its cause through video releases – skilfully edited to enhance the desired effects – purporting to confirm its constant and numerous successes against Israeli invaders, mostly showing hits scored against armoured vehicles.
Then came the news that stunned Israel and put a big question mark on its official line of Hamas being on the verge of collapse. First, nine soldiers were killed in a single operation in the Shujaiya neighbourhood of Gaza City on Tuesday. That shock was followed by another one on Friday, with the Israeli army admitting that it killed three Israeli captives, having mistaken them for enemies – even though they held white flags.
So what is really happening on the ground in Gaza?
Nothing we did not predict weeks ago: The war has entered a difficult, unpredictable and bloody phase of full-scale urban warfare where gains are small and slow, and losses can be huge.
Combat in narrow and cramped streets of old cities is known to be one of the most difficult ways to fight a war. Classic military theory calls for defended cities to be surrounded and blockaded by units just strong enough to prevent the defenders from breaking out, while the main force continues advancing and taking territory.
But the fight in Gaza is not about conquering fields and beaches – Israel’s proclaimed goal is to destroy Hamas. To do that, the first step is to control the ground where the enemy operates: the cities.
In the old days, cities needed strong walls to defend themselves, but in the last 100 years, weapons have advanced at a rapid rate, causing a change in tactics. Successful resistance against enemy attacks no longer depends on huge, expensive static bastions. Nowadays, small but potent man-portable weapons whose destructive power is hugely disproportionate to their size, such as anti-tank rocket launchers, grenade throwers, small mortars, assault rifles and many others, allow the defenders to turn each house and every street into a formidable defensive position.
From the 1940s to this day, almost all attempts to conquer cities held by determined defenders have ended in failure. The few victories attackers achieved were so costly that they often ended the offensive capabilities of those armies pushing into cities.
In their own ways, Stalingrad, Warsaw, Berlin, Dien Bien Phu, Vukovar, Sarajevo, Grozny and Fallujah – some successfully defended, others eventually succumbing to attacks – all confirmed the military wisdom that urban warfare should be avoided whenever possible.
Israel could not avoid urban warfare in Gaza. To have a chance of destroying Hamas, it has to deny it its operating ground, the three biggest urban agglomerations in the strip: Gaza City, Khan Younis and Rafah.
The second phase started with Israeli forces reaching the suburbs, first of Gaza City and then, after the temporary ceasefire expired, of Khan Younis. Treading slowly and carefully in expectation of a concentrated Hamas response, the Israeli military completed the encirclement of those two urban areas.
It would be naive to assume that Israel’s generals hoped that by isolating the two biggest built-up areas in the Gaza Strip, they would seriously impair the ability of the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing, to fight back.
In reality, the encirclement of the two city centres is not a classic one where troops within the blockade cannot be reinforced nor receive any supplies. Hamas still has an unknown but probably major part of its tunnel network intact and can move in and out. They have some difficulties in doing so but Hamas fighters are not locked in.
Aware of the menace that tunnels present but also of the grave hazard of taking the fight into them, Israel has tried several approaches. It has destroyed as many tunnel entrances as it has found, mostly in the areas under its control, but many others that remain keep the danger acute.
After several attempts to send troops underground that ended in disaster, with troops falling casualty to Hamas booby traps, the high command abandoned that approach. It then reportedly mulled the idea of filling tunnels with seawater, claiming that the test-flooding was successful but it has not yet decided to mount a full-scale deluge operation.
This week’s Israeli actions on the ground strongly suggest that the Israeli army leadership realises that the only way towards achieving its proclaimed goal of annihilating Hamas is by taking, holding and controlling the ground throughout the currently surrounded centres of Gaza City and Khan Younis.
That in itself would not guarantee victory but could create conditions to squeeze Hamas fighters into tunnels, after which Israeli forces could block and destroy all entrances.
Flushing Hamas out would probably take weeks of heavy urban warfare with many more instances of massive losses – on both sides.
The more Israeli soldiers get killed in inner cities of Gaza, without still being able to claim the destruction of Hamas, the more the support for the continuation of the military operation would ebb. At some point, calls from Israel to stop the war could become louder than those encouraging it to continue.
Ukraine joins NATO’s Arctic projects against Russia
BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | DECEMBER 19, 2023
In a plea earlier this month to Republicans not to block further military aid to Ukraine, US President Joe Biden warned that if Russia is victorious, then President Vladimir Putin will not stop and will attack a NATO country. Biden’s remark has drawn a sharp rebuke from Putin when he said, “This is absolutely absurd. I believe that President Biden is aware of this, this is merely a figure of speech to support his incorrect strategy against Russia.”
Putin added that Russia has no interest in fighting with NATO countries, as they “have no territorial claims against each other” and Russia does not want to “sour relations with them.” Moscow senses that a new US narrative is struggling to be born out of the debris of the old narrative on Ukraine war.
To jog memory, on 24 February, during a White House press conference on the first day of Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine, Biden said western sanctions were designed not to prevent invasion but to punish Russia after invading “so the people of Russia know what he (Putin) has brought on them. That is what this is all about.”
A month later, on 26 March Biden, speaking in Warsaw, blurted out, “For God’s sake, this man (Putin) cannot remain in power.” These and similar remarks that followed, especially from Britain, reflected a US strategy for regime change in Moscow, with Ukraine as the pivot.
This strategy dates back to the 1990s and was actually at the core of the expansion of NATO along Russia’s borders, from the Baltics to Bulgaria. The Syrian conflict and covert activities of US NGOs to foment unrest in Russia were offshoots of the strategy. At least since 2015 after the coup in Kiev, CIA was overseeing a secret intensive training programme for elite Ukrainian special operations forces and other intelligence personnel. Succinctly put, the US set a trap for Russia to get it bogged down in a long insurgency, the presumption being the longer the Ukrainians can sustain the insurgency and keep Russian military bogged down, the more likely is the end of the Putin regime.
The crux of the matter today is that Russia defeated the US strategy and not only seized the initiative in the war but also rubbished the sanctions regime. The dilemma in the Beltway narrows down to how to keep Russia as an external enemy so that the West’s often fractious member states will continue to rally under US leadership.
What comes to mind is a sardonic remark by Soviet Academician Georgy Arbatov who was advisor to Mikhail Gorbachev, to an elite group of senior US officials even as the curtain was coming down on the Cold War in 1987: “We are going to do a terrible thing to you -– we are going to deprive you of an enemy.”
Unless black humour in this cardinal truth is properly understood, the entire US strategy since the 1990s to rebuff the efforts of Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin, and early Putin to establish non-adversarial relations with the West cannot be grasped.
Put differently, if the US’ post-cold war Russia strategy has not worked, it is because of a fundamental contradiction: on the one hand, Washington needs Russia as an enemy to provide internal unity within the western alliance, while on the other hand, it also needs Russia as a cooperative, subservient junior partner in the struggle against China.
The US hopes to draw down in Ukraine and stave off defeat by leaving behind a “frozen conflict” which it’s free to revisit later at a time of its choice, but in the meanwhile, is increasingly eyeing the Arctic lately as the new theatre to entrap Russia in a quagmire. The induction of Finland into NATO (and Sweden to follow) means that the unfinished business of Ukraine’s membership, which Russia thwarted, can be fulfilled by other means.
After meeting Biden at the White House last Tuesday, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky headed for Oslo on October 13 on a fateful visit to forge his country’s partnership in NATO projects to counter Russia in the Arctic. In Oslo, Zelensky participated in a summit of the 5 Nordic countries to discuss “issues of cooperation in the field of defence and security.” The summit took place against the backdrop of the US reaching agreements with Finland and Sweden on the use of their military infrastructure by the Pentagon.
The big picture is that the US is encouraging Nordic countries to get Ukraine to participate in strengthening NATO’s Arctic borders. One may wonder what is the “additionality” that a decrepit military like Ukraine’s can bring into NATO. Herein hangs a tale. Simply put, although Ukraine has no direct access to the Arctic, it can potentially bring in an impressive capability to undertake subversive activities inside Russian territory in a hybrid war against Russia.
In a strange coincidence, the Pentagon recently prepared the Starlink satellite system for use in the Arctic, which was used by Ukrainian military for staging attacks on the Crimean Bridge, Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and strategic assets on Russian territory. The US’ agreement with Finland and Sweden would give the Pentagon access to a string of naval and air bases and airfields as well as training and testing grounds along the Russian border.
Several hundred thousand Ukrainian citizens are presently domiciled in the Nordic countries who are open to recruitment for “an entire army of saboteurs like the one that Germany collected during the war between Finland and the USSR in 1939-1940 on the islands of Lake Ladoga,” as a Russian military expert told Nezavisimaya Gazeta recently.
Russia’s naval chief Admiral Nikolai Evmenov also pointed out recently that “the strengthening of the military presence of the united NATO armed forces in the Arctic is already an established fact, which indicates the bloc’s transition to practical actions to form military force instruments to deter Russia in the region.” In fact, Russia’s Northern Fleet is forming a marine brigade tasked with the fight against saboteurs to ensure the safety of the new Northern Sea Route, coastal military and industrial infrastructure in the Arctic.
Suffice to say, no matter Ukraine’s defeat in the US’ proxy war with Russia, Zelensky’s use for the US’ geo-strategy remains. From Oslo, Zelensky made an unannounced visit on December 14 to a US Army base in Germany. Analysts who see Zelensky as a spent force had better revise their opinion — that is, unless the power struggle in Kiev exacerbates and Zelensky gets overthrown in a coup or a colour revolution, which seems improbable so long as Biden is in the White House and Hunter Biden is on trial.
The bottom line is that Biden’s new narrative demonising Russia for planning an attack on NATO can be seen from multiple angles. At the most obvious level, it aims to hustle the Congress on the pending bill for $61 billion military aid to Ukraine. Of course, it also distracts attention from the defeat in the war. But, most important, the new narrative is intended to rally the US’ transatlantic allies who are increasingly disillusioned with the outcome of the war and nervous that US involvement in Europe may dwindle as it turns to Indo-Pacific.
When Putin reacts harshly that Biden’s new narrative is “absurd”, he is absolutely right insofar as Russia’s focus is on things far more important than waging a senseless continental war in Europe. After all, it was one of the founding fathers of the USA, James Monroe who said that a king without power is an absurdity.
Ex-US Airman on Depleted Uranium: ‘I Saw Disfigured Newborns & My Dad Dying From Cancer’
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 19.12.2023
It is only a matter of time before Ukraine uses depleted uranium ammunition on the battlefield, if it hasn’t already. The United States and United Kingdom sent the radioactive shells to the Zelensky regime earlier this year, and the rounds have been spotted in warehouses near the frontlines.
Following the costly failure of their “summer counteroffensive,” the Ukrainian military has begun desperately searching for “wonder weapons” to restore their battlefield fortunes.
Announcing the provision of DU rounds to Ukraine, Washington insisted in September that there’s nothing to worry about: the wonder-weapon is somewhat toxic, but overall harmless and fine. Rafael Grossi, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director general, joined the chorus, asserting to the public that there are “no significant radiological consequences” from the use of depleted uranium shells.
These are barefaced lies, according to Damacio A. Lopez, a US Air Force veteran who founded the International Depleted Uranium Study Team and co-founded the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons (ICBUW).
“He [Grossi] is part of the team, part of the team that promotes this project, use of these weapons, he is part and parcel of the superpowers that use it and making excuses for it and trying to convince the public that this is not a problem, as they do repeatedly here in this country. You asked what the people thought about this. Well, they haven’t been getting accurate information. And I tried my best to get that information out in Uranium Battlefields and go in and talk to all these countries and try to explain what was going on.”
Damacio was one of the first Americans who raised the red flag about the disastrous consequences of the weapons. Since 1985, he has been seeking a global ban on depleted uranium arms, which are still not covered by international chemical or nuclear conventions, despite DU’s toxicity and radioactivity.
Sinister Black Cloud Over Socorro
Damacio was born in Socorro, a town in southern central New Mexico along the Rio Grande. Back in 1945, the Trinity nuclear test rocked the Jornada del Muerto Desert, only 36 miles southeast of his hometown. Damacio was only two years at that time, but later he became curious about radiation hazards.
The Trinity blast wasn’t the only US nuclear experiment in the region. In 1985, when Lopez visited his parents in Socorro during the Christmas holidays, the first thing he heard on his arrival was the sound of very loud explosions less than two miles from his house. Explosions occurred regularly, making dishes rattle and causing cracks in the walls. But even more alarming was a dark black cloud hovering over the town after the blasts.
“This was disturbing. And it wasn’t just my family. It was all the families in Socorro. From the middle of Socorro, the city park, to where the explosions had taken place, is two miles. That’s up. And the prevailing winds come over the community every time one of these bombs goes off. And of course, people were very concerned about what was going on. And my Mom asked me to look into this. And so I did. I contacted the Board of Regents of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, who are responsible for these explosions. Because they had been testing different kinds of weapons there since 1946.”
Lopez went to a Board of Regents meeting and asked about the explosions and dark clouds of smoke. But in response, he only got evasive answers.
Still, his efforts bore some fruit: one morning, he found five mysterious boxes in the front yard of his Socorro house. When he opened them, he found documents shedding light on the ongoing disaster.
“Well, those boxes were full of information about depleted uranium and testing in Socorro, and their ideas and what they were doing. And it went way, way back, before 1972, explaining the development of these weapons and what they were trying to do and the different kinds of weapons they were experimenting with, like cluster bombs instead of using metal or tungsten or titanium. They would try depleted uranium and see how that worked. So they were doing these kinds of preliminary testing, along with two other laboratories in New Mexico, plus laboratories outside of New Mexico. They were all working together. And I saw all this information. It wasn’t just about Socorro. It was about worldwide testing with what was going on in Europe and who was testing these weapons and what kind of weapons they were testing.”
He learned that the black cloud that he saw was radioactive and chemically toxic dust ejected into the atmosphere by depleted uranium blasts.
Damacio decided to dig deeper. He knew that the exposure to nuclear materials could lead to health problems, so he went to the Health Department in Santa Fe and sought information about Socorro’s residents. The records gave him the shivers: over past years, the community’s health problems had piled up, with the number of cases of hydrocephalus, cancer, and birth defects higher than in the other counties around the state.
This gruesome discovery prompted him to start researching the effects of depleted uranium contamination.
Horrific Effects of Exposure to Depleted Uranium
“I have a brother who’s bent over, and when he speaks, and he’s 10 years younger than me, something’s wrong with his spine,” Damacio said. “And his body is kind of flopped over. And when he looks at you, he looks like a turtle. He’s way down like this, and looks up. I mean, he’s normally about 5 ft 6 in. And now he looks like he’s about 4 ft. It’s a horrible sight. His teeth are all rotten. He’s the one who lives right next to the facility. You know, here’s the facility right here.
Here’s my house. And here is a town. There’s a fence between us and it says ‘Keep out, government property.’ And so our family is very close, one of the closest homes to this facility.”
“My dad ended up dying from cancer,” the activist continued. “And it was a sad situation for us. And like I said earlier, the people there, when they realized the truth about what was going on, instead of saying, ‘Oh, we want to stop this,’ no, they’re saying, ‘What? What can we do to survive? How can we survive this thing?’ And well, they couldn’t leave. So they just stay. And over the years, refusing sometimes to even acknowledge the dangers around them, because I believe they have no other choice. And it’s dehumanizing for people to be in that situation.”
In the late 1990s, Damacio was invited to Iraq by the nation’s authorities to speak at a conference on the depleted uranium weapons used in the country by the US during the Persian Gulf War (1990-1991). In 1993, Lopez and his fellows published the book Uranium Battlefields Home and Abroad: Depleted Uranium Use by the US Department of Defense, looking into DU testing sites in the US and the Pentagon’s use of the weapons abroad. The US and its allies unleashed over 300 tons of DU in Iraq.
“Well, when I went to Iraq and I told the people, I want to see if what’s happening here is happening there as well. So I’m not only the victim, but I’m also a researcher and I want to have accurate information. I just don’t want to take other people’s word for things. And I don’t, and I never have. Maybe at the very beginning of my discovery I did that. But since then, I want to see the people involved in these situations.”
“I found a lot of [health] related issues. At that conference that I went to, I learned a lot of things and I was one of the speakers at this conference. And so I was able to get studies from these medical people who had done a lot of studies on the people in Iraq and birth defects, cancers. These were the top things that were going on in their country, and some of the cancers were the same cancers, the same cancer that my father died from. And a lot of other people in the town were having problems in Socorro with birth defects. So I was able to go into hospitals in Iraq to see for myself the people who were victims.”
But the greatest shock for Damacio was Iraqi children who were born after the US bombing campaign. When he recalls them, he cannot hold back his tears.
“In one particular hospital I was able to see many, many children with birth defects that were so severe that it was so hard for me to think of them as even human.”
“I’m talking about very, very serious birth defects. Can you imagine walking into a place and seeing a child with one eye and his forehead? It’s like not even human. And I met this little boy. He was three years old. He was with his mother and he had a big head, hydrocephalus. And one eye was turned up and his other eye was turned down. He was skin and bones. He was three years old, couldn’t weigh more than 20 pounds. And his head was huge. Little tiny, tiny legs. It’s almost skin and bone. And the mother was holding him and wiping the blood from his mouth. And as I was leaving the hospital, tears started streaming down my face. I couldn’t control it. It was so, so bad.”
The little boy looked listless. Damacio thought for a moment that the toddler couldn’t see or hear. “And as I was leaving the room, I heard the little boy scream out: ‘Mama, mama!’ And it sent chills through my entire body.”
If Damacio were told at the time that the US government would throw another thousand tons of depleted uranium on Iraq in just three weeks during the Second Gulf War, it would have stopped the researcher’s heart.
Geiger Counter Never Lies: DU Weapons are Radioactive
Lopez suspected that these hideous birth defects and the spike in cancer cases were caused by depleted uranium’s radioactivity and toxicity. Preparing for his Iraq trip, he took his Geiger counter. The radiation detector “could identify alpha, beta, and gamma, and could identify whether it was depleted uranium or something more hot than depleted uranium,” according to the researcher.
While in Baghdad, Damacio visited the Amiriyah shelter, which was subjected to a US aerial attack that killed over 400 civilians, including children, on February 13, 1991.
“It was quite a sight when I was looking at the blood and hairs of the people on the walls and the children. And then there was an area where they had all their pictures. I was there with the Japanese delegation in this particular visit. And for them, it was common – it was not common, but they knew this well about the shadows on the wall and the hair and the blood from what happened in their country when they were bombed. So they understood all this.”
“Eyewitnesses told me, more than one said to me: ‘Damacio, what happened here is… I saw this projectile. I saw this large Tomahawk cruise missile making curves around streets.’ And then, when they got to the Amiriyah shelter, they went up high, came straight down in the middle of the shelter that had three stories, three feet of concrete between the stories to protect the people in there. In this case, children. There were more than 600 kids and school kids in that shelter at this time. The missile came down from the middle of the shelter, went through, went all the way down to the bottom of the shelter, and then went into a deep hole there. I saw all this, and they’re watching it.”
Lopez decided to find remnants of projectiles used during the US bombing of Baghdad and other areas and make measurements. He knew that typically, natural background radiation levels could range between five and 60 counts per minute, or a little more. Anything higher than that meant potential radioactive contamination.
“I found in one of the facilities in Baghdad after going to the Amiriyah shelter, there was an exhibition, there was a big building and they had picked up all the war remnants that they had found. One of them was partially, about three quarters, a Tomahawk cruise missile. And I had my detector and I checked it out. It was about a hundred counts per minute, which was an indication that there was radiation within this Tomahawk cruise missile.”
Then he travelled to a site on the border between Kuwait and Iraq, dubbed the “Highway of Death,” where thousands of Iraqi tanks and armored vehicles were pierced and burned by DU munitions fired by US A-10 Warthogs. There, he got readings of about 100-120 counts per minute on the holes of the damaged tanks. Lopez also collected small pieces of metal as samples that showed a reading of 600 counts per minute.
“And I happened to find several projectiles, 30 millimeters, that had missed the target and hit the ground and bounced. And they were intact. So I checked them out with my detector, thinking I’m going to get 600 counts per minute. I was getting 2,500 per minute on these projectiles, so high that my radiation detector wouldn’t go any higher than in its capabilities. And it would go ‘u-u-u-u,’ could have been higher than 2,400 counts per minute. And the only conclusion I could draw from that is that nuclear waste from nuclear facilities was being mixed with what was so-called depleted uranium. And this became even more alarming.”
DU Weapons are Made of Radioactive Waste
Lopez tried to find out why the US had decided to use depleted uranium for its ammo in the first place.
Damacio’s book Uranium Battlefields Home and Abroad: Depleted Uranium Use by the US Department of Defense explains that DU is a byproduct of the uranium enrichment process by which the fissionable isotope uranium-235 (U235) is extracted from natural uranium for subsequent use as fuel for nuclear reactors.
Natural uranium, a silvery-grey metal, contains 0.7% U235, 99.3% U238, and a small amount of U234 by mass. After producing 85 kilograms of enriched uranium, one would get 915 kg of U238, or depleted uranium.
The Pentagon argues that U238 retains “only” 60% of natural uranium’s radioactivity and emits alpha particles, which have low penetration depth and can be stopped by skin. Inside the body, however, alpha-emitters can be extremely harmful, damaging sensitive living tissue. After the explosion of DU projectiles, microscopic and light uranium dust can travel with the wind, be inhaled, swallowed, or enter the body through a wound, later causing cancer and chromosome damage.
One should bear in mind that depleted uranium is radioactive waste that should be disposed of, Lopez pointed out in his book. However, almost all DU tails have been saved by the US government since the early 1940s. Moreover, they can be purchased for commercial use, according to the researcher. To date, the US has accumulated a massive storage of DU amounting to over 700,000 metric tons.
Why Do Pentagon and Defense Contractors Like DU So Much?
Lopez explained that from a military standpoint, the most important property of DU is its great density, relatively low cost of fabrication, and availability. The material is used for tank armor and projectiles of different sizes.
Highly-dense DU munitions easily pierce tanks and other armored vehicles. While tungsten carbide projectiles are capable of doing the same, DU is cheaper, more accessible, and offers greater margins for US military firms.
On the other hand, turning spent uranium into bullets and shells has become an “ingenious” solution for the US nuclear industry on how to “dispose” of radioactive waste, Lopez said in his book. So, as money talks, the US’ testing and use of DU weapons continue unabated, according to the activist.
But has the Pentagon ever been aware of the long-lasting hazard related to DU projectiles?
The US Department of Defense’s internal memos, leaked to the press in the late 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s, indicate that the Pentagon knew. But why would it use the toxic and radioactive substance nevertheless?
A March 1, 1991 document shows the US DoD’s attitude to DU weapons use in a nutshell. Authored by US Lieutenant Colonel M.V. Ziehmn at the Los Alamos Laboratories in New Mexico, the memo reads:
“There has been and continues to be a concern regarding the impact of DU [sic] on the environment.
Therefore, if no one makes a case for the effectiveness of DU on the battlefield, DU rounds may become politically unacceptable and thus, be deleted from the arsenal.”
The memo went on by saying: “If DU penetrators proved their worth during our recent combat activities, then we should assure their future existence (until something better is developed),” adding “we should keep this sensitive issue at mind when after action reports [sic] are written”; otherwise the US may lose “a valuable combat capability.”
Why Are the Pentagon and White House Keeping DU’s Deadly Effects Secret?
The documentary Uranium 238: The Pentagon´s Dirty Pool (2009), used by Lopez’s International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons (ICBUW) as part of its international campaign to prohibit DU, said that the Pentagon is in denial about DU munitions potentially leading to carcinogenic diseases, birth defects, and environmental contamination.
The US Defense Department has even invented a sort of “DU diplomacy” to reassure the world community and American citizens that there is nothing to worry about, according to the ICBUW. Meanwhile, the US has not only failed to inform affected nations – Iraq, Bosnia, Serbia, Syria – about the DU hazard, but also repeatedly exposed American soldiers to the toxic and radioactive waste. Per the documentary, DU weapons in all but name are a “dirty bomb” – a mix of explosives and radioactive material – used by terrorists. Yet somehow DU rounds are still called “conventional weapons.”
One could easily imagine that if the US government admits DU’s hazardous effects, the weapon would be banned, influential defense contractors would be stripped of their profits, and Washington would be slapped with a heap of legal cases with compensation demands.
And the US is not the only country that uses depleted uranium as a weapon, as some of its NATO allies also do, according to Lopez.
“[The US keeps DU’s deadly effect secret], for the same reason all the other countries that have the weapon kept secret, as much as they can keep it secret, it is because they know they’re violating international laws, international conventions on weapons, and they know that they’re going to have to pay the price someday, and they may end up with charges of violations of international laws. And so they’re trying to protect themselves. And at the same time, they want to continue to keep the weapon because they’re afraid other countries have weapons too,” Lopez concluded.
NATO troops directly involved in Ukraine conflict – Russia
RT | December 19, 2023
Several NATO member states have boots on the ground in the Ukraine conflict, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has claimed. He alleged that Western military personnel are operating certain weapons systems, and that hundreds of satellites belonging to the US-led military bloc are providing Kiev with surveillance.
Speaking at a meeting of Defense Ministry officials on Tuesday, where President Vladimir Putin was also present, Shoigu stated that “NATO service members are directly operating air defense systems, tactical ballistic missiles, and multiple launch rocket systems” in Ukraine. He cited radio intercepts featuring English and Polish speakers. According to the minister, Western officers are also playing an active role in preparing Ukrainian military operations as well as training troops, both in their home countries and in Ukraine.
Russian officials have repeatedly warned that ever-deepening Western involvement in the conflict unnecessarily increases the chances of a direct military confrontation between NATO and Moscow.
The Russian defense chief went on to claim that more than 5,000 foreign fighters have been killed since hostilities broke out in February 2022, with 1,427 Polish, 466 US, and 344 UK nationals among them.
“Working in the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ interest are 410 NATO military and dual-purpose space devices,” Shoigu estimated.
He also lauded Russia’s defense industry for ramping up production in the past 18 months and helping prevent ammunition shortages on the front lines. “Despite the sanctions, we are manufacturing more high-tech weaponry than NATO countries,” Shoigu continued.
The minister concluded by stating that “as of today, the Russian army is the best-prepared and most combat-ready in the world, armed with cutting-edge weapons tested in combat.”
Putin insisted at the same meeting that the West’s efforts to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia have failed.
Speaking to the Ukrainian branch of US state-run broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) on Friday, Kiev’s former ambassador to the UK, Vadim Prystaiko, claimed that Britain is developing plans to potentially deploy troops to Ukraine.
The diplomat, who was fired after criticizing Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, went on to suggest that while Western officials will deny any such plans, foreign deployments are still possible under certain circumstances.
US pressures Saudi Arabia to postpone imminent peace deal with Yemen
The Cradle | December 18, 2023
The US is exerting pressure on Saudi Arabia to delay the signing of a peace agreement with Yemen and instead join an expanded maritime protection task force to confront Yemeni attacks against Israeli-linked ships in the Red Sea.
According to a report by Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar, a draft peace deal between Sanaa and Riyadh has been finalized. It could be signed before the end of the year, potentially ending a NATO-backed war that has decimated the Arab world’s poorest country for eight years.
“Saudi Arabia is going through a difficult test between two options […] Either it will emerge from the Yemeni quagmire under a roadmap agreed upon with Sanaa, or it will submit to US dictates and join the international maritime coalition, and this means remaining vulnerable to [western] blackmail,” the Al-Akhbar report details.
Despite the pressure from Washington, the kingdom is reportedly “continuing on the path to peace” and is working to “speed up” the completion of the peace agreements to avoid “further obstruction by the Emiratis or local agents.”
Saudi and Yemeni negotiators have given their final comments on the agreement. The revised version was recently delivered to UN special envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, who has started coordinating an official peace ceremony.
According to Al-Akhbar’s sources in Riyadh and Sanaa, the peace deal includes the complete lifting of a land, sea, and air blockade imposed on Yemen by the Saudi-led coalition, a “consensual mechanism” to pay the salaries of public employees, and the free export of oil from Saudi-controlled regions.
“The ball is in Riyadh’s court, which is under US pressure to delay the signing and enter into a war alliance against Yemen in the Red Sea,” Al-Akhbar highlights, adding that UAE-backed forces are also looking to derail the peace process.
A peace agreement between Saudi Arabia and Yemen would significantly hamper US efforts to deploy an international naval task force to the Red Sea to protect Israel’s maritime trade.
“The force, provisionally entitled Operation Prosperity Guardian, is due to be announced by the defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, when he visits [West Asia],” UK daily The Guardian reported on 17 December.
The US war chief is set to visit Israel later this week to meet with senior officials. According to the British outlet, western officials believe Washington has secured the involvement of Jordan, the UAE, Qatar, Oman, Egypt, and Bahrain.
For the past several weeks, the Yemeni armed forces have been launching attacks on Israeli-linked commercial vessels attempting to cross the Bab al-Mandab Strait south of the Suez Canal.
In response, five of the world’s largest shipping companies have announced a complete cessation of activities in the vital sea route. These are Hong Kong-based OOCL, France’s CMA CGM, the Danish Maersk, the German Hapag-Lloyd, and the Italian-Swiss-owned Mediterranean Shipping Co.
Finland’s new ‘defense’ deal with US eerily reminds of similar one with Nazi Germany
By Drago Bosnic | December 18, 2023
Ever since NATO formally (re)started the (New) Cold War, it has been expanding its military presence all across Europe, effectively escalating its crawling aggression on the continent. The obvious target – Russia. The belligerent alliance is determined to create a new “frontline” on Moscow’s western borders, this time by drastically increasing American military presence in Finland. Namely, last week, Helsinki announced that it will sign a bilateral “defense” cooperation agreement with the United States, allowing the latter to station troops and store weapons in Finland. During a news conference in Helsinki on December 14, the Nordic country’s Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen stated that Defense Minister Antti Häkkänen will sign the so-called Defense Cooperation Agreement (DCA) on December 18 (today).
“The pact is very significant for Finland’s defense and security,” Häkkänen was quoted by Euronews, adding: “It bears a very strong message in this time. The United States is committed to our defense.”
The DCA will allow American troops to access 15 military areas and facilities in the entirety of Finland, ranging from a key southern naval base and inland air bases to a vast remote army training area in Lapland in the north. Interestingly, Finnish officials admitted that American troops are allowed a permanent presence and regular exercises in the country, but they insist that “there are no plans to establish permanent US military bases in Finland”. These two claims are extremely contradictory, not to mention the fact that such deployments contribute nothing to Finnish security. On the contrary, this can only attract the attention of Russia, which otherwise would’ve never considered Finland a threat. The Nordic country of 5,6 million shares a 1,340-kilometer border with Russia, nearly tripling the line of direct NATO-Russia contact.
Along with the Baltic states, it’s also the European Union’s external border with Russia. The troubled bloc itself is militarizing and effectively unifying with NATO, cementing Europe’s position as a mere pendant of America’s geopolitical strategy of so-called “containment”. Other countries on the continent have similar bilateral agreements with the US, including the neighboring Sweden, while Denmark (already a NATO member) is very likely to do the same. The obvious question arises, why are Finland and Sweden doing this? Will they feel safer with American and other NATO troops stationed in their military facilities? It’s quite obvious that the belligerent alliance has always been an auxiliary extension of the Pentagon and this has been the case since NATO’s unfortunate inception 74 years ago, as well as its subsequent expansion.
Thus, an increase in American military presence in Finland should always be observed from the perspective of US expansionism, as the world’s most aggressive country keeps moving its “defense” infrastructure ever closer to the borders of its geopolitical adversaries. This has been the case in the (First) Cold War and it’s no different nowadays when Washington DC is pushing one European country after another into a broader anti-Russian coalition that now includes the entire EU. The US is also trying to do the same by constituting a near carbon copy of NATO in the Pacific in a virtually identical step, only aimed against China. The formal admission of Finland back in April and the current military expansion are just steps toward the so-called “globalization” of NATO, a terrifying prospect for the security of the world.
It could be argued that Finland was never truly neutral, not even during the (First) Cold War and particularly not since it entered the EU. It has always been packed with US/NATO intelligence assets, although this has escalated significantly in the last several decades. Since then, the country has essentially become a NATO member in all but name. Helsinki directly broke from its formal neutrality when it decided to acquire F-35 fighter jets from the US in late 2021. The Pentagon has direct access to everything the F-35’s sensors can detect, meaning that Finland would be sharing key military data with the US regardless of whether it was a NATO member or not. On the other hand, as I argued back in early April, being a direct member means that the Nordic country is virtually guaranteed to see the deployment of American offensive weapons.
The details of the latest “defense” deal are yet to be revealed, but it can only be expected that it will involve much more than simple infantry deployments. For Russia, this is particularly concerning, as Finland and Estonia, now both NATO members, are in close proximity to St. Petersburg, its second most important city. The stationing of any US offensive weapons such as cruise missiles and nuclear-capable fighter jets would deeply destabilize the otherwise largely stable region. There’s also a quite eerie historical dimension in all this. Namely, Helsinki is essentially repeating the same mistake it made over 80 years ago when it joined the Axis led by Nazi Germany. Now when it’s among “old friends” once again, maybe the Nordic country should dust off the history books and pay very close attention to how this ended the last time.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
EU could stop Hungary voting on Ukraine – FT
RT | December 18, 2023
The possibility of Hungary temporarily forfeiting its voting rights within the European Union is reportedly being considered, the Financial Times has claimed. This development comes after heightened discussions, especially after Budapest opposed a €50 billion ($54 billion) four-year financial aid package for Ukraine during last Thursday’s EU summit.
While Hungary did not ultimately block the initiation of EU accession talks with Kiev, as previously threatened, the Central European nation maintains a divergent stance on Ukraine compared to the bloc’s official position. Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government has consistently criticized Brussels’ plans for Ukraine’s full EU membership and Western countries’ belief in Kiev’s military capability against Russia.
According to the Financial Times’ report published on Monday, citing anonymous officials, some EU members are considering activating Article 7 of the Treaty on European Union, which allows states to lose certain rights if persistently in breach of core EU principles.
The report pointed out, however, that many countries are hesitant to use this perceived nuclear option. Instead, these nations prefer revealing to Budapest the “full costs” of its isolation.
An anonymous EU staffer told the media outlet that while “Hungary can create more trouble,” it will not be able to “stop us providing money to Ukraine.” The official disagreed with those who like to paint Orban as “Putin’s puppet,” adding that the Hungarian prime minister is pursuing his own agenda.
The FT quoted another unnamed EU diplomat as saying that Orban is “always transactional, never ideological” and is merely seeking the unfreezing of €20 billion worth of EU funding, which Brussels had suspended over concerns related to the rule of law in the Central European country.
The Hungarian prime minister and his foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, however, dismissed such claims last week.
On the other hand, Lithuanian MEP Rasa Jukneviciene asserted on Friday that Orban is working for Russia and undermining the EU from within.
“I appeal to the Commission, to the leaders of the Council: Let’s start to think about the procedure to suspend the voting rights of Hungary,” the lawmaker implored.
Speaking to Hungary’s Radio Kossuth on Friday, Orban highlighted that Budapest still has approximately 75 opportunities to impede Kiev’s path to EU membership. He has raised concerns about what he describes as endemic corruption in Ukraine on multiple occasions.
UK contemplating sending troops to Ukraine – ex-ambassador
RT | December 17, 2023
British military leaders are making contingency plans for sending troops to Ukraine in case a disastrous turn of events on the battlefield necessitates their deployment to help fight Russian forces, Kiev’s former ambassador to the UK has claimed.
Despite public opposition, the UK government would directly join the fight in Ukraine if there’s a “catastrophic development of the war,” such as “the continuation of the occupation,” ex-diplomat Vadym Prystaiko said on Friday in an interview with the Ukrainian branch of US state-run broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL).
The possibility of military deployments to Ukraine is a well-kept secret among Kiev’s Western allies, Prystaiko said. “No one will ever admit it, especially politicians. Every time they are asked, they will say, ‘no, no no way, come on, we’d rather give them everything they need.”
However, Prystaiko added, British officers are making plans “for the worst” – circumstances dire enough to prompt elected leaders to order a direct military intervention in the former Soviet republic. “In reality, the military is making calculations that, God forbid, they will have to use armed forces. That’s why the military and diplomats are there, to plan for the future.”
Prystaiko, who also served a stint as Kiev’s foreign minister, was fired as ambassador last July, after he criticized Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. His career downfall began when Zelensky responded sarcastically to a suggestion by the UK’s then-defense chief, Ben Wallace, that Ukraine should show more gratitude to its Western benefactors. Asked by Sky News about the tone of Zelensky’s remarks, he said, “I don’t believe that this sarcasm is healthy.”
Wallace’s successor as UK defense chief, Grant Shapps, hinted in September at deeper British involvement in the Ukraine crisis, including protection of commercial shipping traffic in the Black Sea. UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak later said there had been “misreporting” when Shapps also seemed to suggest that London might send military instructors to Ukraine.
Russian officials have repeatedly described the conflict as a battle between Moscow and the “entire Western military machine.” British special forces have reportedly operated covertly in Ukraine, and Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed last year that there were entire military units in the country “under the de-facto command of Western advisers.”
Polls have shown consistently strong UK public opposition to deploying troops to Ukraine. Prystaiko said that given the mood of voters, none of Kiev’s backers is ready to fight the Russians directly. “It’s very difficult for democratic states that depend on the reelection cycle, that depend on their voters, that have to explain themselves a hundred times to make the first step.”
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Invisible harm from ionizing radiation
By Bjorn Hilt | International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War | December 8, 2015
Besides the terrible effects of the burst of light that causes eye damage, the heat that sets everything flammable on fire, the electromagnetic pulse that knocks out all electronic devices, and the blast that produces winds with ten times the force of a hurricane, demolishing everything, the detonation of nuclear weapons also leads to the emission of large amounts of ionizing radiation, which has serious deleterious effects on humans and many other species. Ionizing radiation is, in fact, a lurking danger as we cannot see it, we cannot smell it, we cannot hear it, and we cannot feel it immediately. But we certainly get harmed from it.
To reduce exposure to ionizing radiation and the risk of deleterious effects, we doctors usually warn our patients against having frequent examinations or procedures that involve x-rays. That is because x-rays are ionizing radiation that can harm your body in the same ways as radiation emitted by nuclear detonations. The main difference is that, for medical purposes, the radiation is applied in a controlled way.
The international standard unit for the dose of ionizing radiation is the Sievert. National guidelines in many countries warn against people having a cumulative dose of ionizing radiation exceeding 0.001 Sievert/year. The dose from a full body CT scan is 0.01 – 0.03 Sievert.
The ionizing radiation to which everybody in the vicinity of a nuclear detonation is exposed is so high and immediate that measuring in Sievert does not have much meaning. Such exposures are measured in Gray, where five Gray is reckoned to be lethal to 50% of those exposed (LD50). Even though these types of exposures are not directly comparable, for the common types of ionizing radiation, 1 Gray equals approximately 1.3 Sievert. … continue
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